Democrats face narrow path to retake Senate in 2016

Democrats can take back the Senate in 2016 after a stinging, nine-seat defeat last year — but their path is narrow, and any gains could be fleeting.

The party needs to capture four or five seats — depending on the results of the presidential election — next November. While the 2016 map is favorable, flipping control of the Senate would require winning most of the toss-up races and defeating several well-funded GOP incumbents in pricey swing states that will also be crucial in the race for the White House.

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Both parties — by virtue of the Senate seats that are in cycle next year — have distinct goals in the early stages of the race to control the chamber. Democrats are trying to identify and recruit candidates to take on the myriad GOP senators who are up for reelection in 2016. Republicans, on the other hand, have few pick-up opportunities and are looking to shore up their incumbents.

Since we set our initial Campaign Pro Senate-race rankings three months ago, Democrats have recorded some notable recruiting successes: Illinois Rep. Tammy Duckworth entered the race against GOP Sen. Mark Kirk; former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold challenged the man who beat him in 2010, Sen. Ron Johnson, to a rematch; and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s preferred successor in Nevada, former state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, jumped in the contest to replace him.

There have been some misses: Democrats couldn’t persuade former Sen. Kay Hagan to challenge GOP incumbent Richard Burr in North Carolina. And the party seems unlikely to avoid a potentially costly primary in Florida, where controversial Rep. Alan Grayson is crowing about taking on the establishment pick, Rep. Patrick Murphy.

Similarly, the past three months have been a mixed bag for Republicans. Their incumbents mostly posted strong fundraising numbers in the first quarter of this year, and the only primaries they’re facing are in open seats. Rep. Joe Heck’s announcement Monday that he will run in Nevada was a recruiting victory for Republicans, but the party has yet to find a candidate in Colorado and put a second Democratic-held seat in play.

It all leaves us roughly where we were in late March: Eight of the 10 seats most likely to change parties next year are held by Republicans, and Democrats have a solid chance to grab control of the Senate following the 2016 elections.

But Democrats should have higher ambitions for the number of seats they hope to grab in 2016. The 2018 Senate map isn’t nearly as welcoming for the party — they will be defending seats in Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

National Democrats say plainly the goal is to take control of the Senate in 2017. But if they intend to hold it for more than two years, they’ll likely need to run up the score by putting in play GOP-held seats further down this list, like North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri.

Here are Campaign Pro’s latest Senate race rankings:

1. Illinois (Previous ranking: 1): Kirk remains the most vulnerable incumbent on the Senate landscape next year. It’s largely a matter of fundamentals: He’s running for reelection in a state where President Barack Obama won 58 percent of the vote in 2012. Kirk hasn’t done himself any favors with a pattern of inartful or offensive comments; for example, calling fellow Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a lifelong bachelor, “a bro with no ho.” Democrats are excited about Duckworth, but the Iraq War veteran still faces a credible primary challenger in former Chicago Urban League President Andrea Zopp, who raised more than $660,000 in the second quarter . Duckworth entered the race on March 30, which means when she reports her second-quarter fundraising figures in the next few weeks, expectations are high. Duckworth is the favorite, and Democrats want her to put this race away by Labor Day 2016. Republicans are hoping Duckworth will be dinged by Zopp during the primary and a whistleblower lawsuit that dates back to her time at the state Department of Veterans Affairs going to trial next spring.

2. Wisconsin (2): Feingold starts the race in the lead. We’re closely watching the money: Feingold, a longtime campaign finance hawk, raised more than $2.2 million in the second quarter. That’s a haul that should allow him to remain competitive with Johnson — who self-funded in 2010 but accelerated his outside fundraising last quarter. Moreover, Republicans think they can turn around the issue of campaign finance on Feingold after reports scrutinizing his political action committee’s activities. Wisconsin is a purple but polarized state: Feingold and Johnson represent the more ideological wings of their respective parties, though we’ve noticed Johnson siding with Democrats to an increasing degree in Senate votes. The universe of persuadable voters is small in Wisconsin, and Democrats usually prevail in presidential years. Johnson’s best hope might be if Gov. Scott Walker is the GOP nominee.

3. Florida (6): The next handful of races are closer to 50-50 propositions. Both parties are looking at contentious primary fields in the race to replace Sen. Marco Rubio: On the Republican side, if Rep. Jeff Miller enters the race, he could split support with Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, potentially propelling Rep. Ron DeSantis, a favorite of conservative outside groups, to the top. That would please Democrats, who view DeSantis as the least electable general-election nominee. But Dems have their own problem: Grayson — borderline unelectable in the general — appears poised to enter the race next month, and the party takes him at his word when he says he’s going to challenge Murphy from the left. And even if Murphy survives a primary with Grayson, Democrats are wary the outspoken Grayson will run a scorched-earth campaign; that’s why the party has fanned the flames of a number of negative stories about Grayson in recent months. By far, this is the race on this list with the greatest chance to bounce around in the coming months.

4. New Hampshire (5): For months, both parties have been waiting for Gov. Maggie Hassan, Democrats’ top recruiting target, to jump in the race against GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte. But that’s far from a sure thing: Recent stories from the Granite State indicated she may be leaning toward a reelection bid instead. Hassan has said she would be announcing at the end of the state legislative session, but a protracted budget fight — Hassan vetoed the state Legislature’s budget last month — threatens to stretch well into the summer. Republican-linked nonprofit groups have been savaging Hassan on radio and television over the past few months — a two-for-one deal, given she’ll likely be on the 2016 ballot in some capacity. Democrats have a bench here — Executive Councilor Chris Pappas is one possibility — but their chances would take a hit if Hassan passed.

5. Nevada (3): It wasn’t a surprise when popular GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval said he wouldn’t run to replace retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, but Sandoval — who won 70 percent of the vote in his landslide reelection campaign — would have moved this race to a spot at or near the top of this list. Instead, the party landed Heck — a three-term congressman, one-star Army general and osteopathic physician — on Monday. Heck is a good candidate, much in the mold of Sen. Dean Heller, who also won in a presidential year. But Heller’s victory was by just 1 point over a flawed candidate in 2012, and Democrats don’t expect their likely nominee, Cortez Masto, to run a similarly shaky campaign. A Heck/Cortez Masto general election starts as a toss-up.

6. Pennsylvania (4): After months of casting for another candidate, Democrats appear ready to accept former Rep. Joe Sestak as their probable nominee. Sestak lost to now-Sen. Pat Toomey by just 2 points in 2010 in a campaign most Democrats believe was poorly run. Sen. Pat Toomey was known as a staunch conservative before joining the Senate, but he’s smartly moved to the center on select issues, like backing stronger gun laws. Sestak’s fundraising appeared to dry up in the first quarter; we’ll see soon if the cash started flowing again now that the party is resigned to his candidacy.

7. Ohio (8): Former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland has posted significant leads against GOP Sen. Rob Portman in two Quinnipiac University polls released since we last set these rankings. So why is Ohio stuck behind Pennsylvania, where the same pollster shows Toomey well clear of Sestak? It comes down to fundamentals. While both are battleground states, Ohio is slightly more Republican than Pennsylvania. Strickland also needs to show us he’s ready for primetime after five-plus years on the shelf. He entered the race late in the first quarter, but he was still outraised by fellow Democrat P.G. Sittenfeld, whom national Dems tried to push out of the race. Strickland will have to impress in the second quarter against the well-funded Portman (who announced Monday he has more than $10 million in the bank), to say nothing of his primary challenger.

8. North Carolina (9): Democrats need a standard-bearer here after Hagan said no last week. North Carolina has been a 50-50 state in the past two presidential elections, but until there’s a living, breathing candidate to take on Burr — whose poll numbers are middling — it’s tough to gauge whether the party can put this race in play.

9. Colorado (7): A mirror image of North Carolina: Republicans can’t find anyone to take on Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. Both Rep. Mike Coffman and his wife, Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, declined — as did state Sen. Ellen Roberts and former state Sen. Mike Kopp. Adding to the GOP’s woes — and, potentially, its recruiting ability — is a messy, lurid scandal involving the state GOP chairman. National Republicans caution against writing off the race, pointing out that now-Sen. Cory Gardner didn’t enter the 2014 race until after the election year began. We’ll keep it in the top 10 for now, beneath North Carolina, which doesn’t have the narrow-but-significant lean in a presidential year that Colorado does.

10. Indiana (10): Democrats are excited about their prospects in the Hoosier State, but they acknowledge that a lot has to go right for them to compete here — particularly an investment by Hillary Clinton in winning the state’s 11 electoral votes. Still, GOP Gov. Mike Pence’s declining popularity, combined with an open seat after Sen. Dan Coats’ retirement, gives them a fighting chance. The GOP nominee — Reps. Todd Young and Marlin Stutzman are seen as more likely than Eric Holcomb, Coats’ former chief of staff — will start the general election as the favorite. One X factor: The chances of progressives rebelling against former Blue Dog Rep. Baron Hill in a primary diminished last week, when state Rep. Christina Hale said she wouldn’t run.

11. Missouri (11): Little has changed here since March: Democrats are still high on Jason Kander, the 34-year-old secretary of state. They’ll get some help from what promises to be a competitive gubernatorial race. But absent a massive wave or political malpractice from GOP Sen. Roy Blunt, it’s an uphill climb — even if Clinton competes for a state her husband won twice but hasn’t gone Democratic since.

12. Arizona (13): Sen. John McCain won’t be caught flat-footed, but that’s more about fending off primary challengers to the perennial conservative target. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick is in the race on the Democratic side, though it’s unclear if fellow Democrat Kyrsten Sinema will join her now that the Supreme Court is keeping the state’s congressional map in place.

13. Georgia (14): Sen. Johnny Isakson says a recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease doesn’t affect his reelection plans. He’s so far discouraged the emergence of a credible challenger in both the primary and the general.

14. Kentucky (15): Sen. Rand Paul continues to pursue a reelection bid at the same time he campaigns for the GOP presidential nomination. It’s unlikely voters would punish Paul if he fell short in Iowa and New Hampshire and returned to refocus on the Bluegrass State next spring.

15. Alaska (12): Former Democratic Sen. Mark Begich won’t close the door on another run, but in interviews he seems disinclined to pull the trigger. Sen. Lisa Murkowski should coast if she can avoid losing the Republican primary — as she did in 2010, before winning a write-in campaign.